The first time Jennifer Lawrence teamed with writer/director David O. Russell, they made Silver Linings Playbook, and she won an Oscar. The second time they teamed together they made American Hustle, and she was nominated for another Oscar. Now they’ve got Joy, yet another prestige drama coming out in December. Looks like they’re going for the trifecta.

Here is the official synopsis for Joy, helpfully provided by the distributor Fox. It’s good they sent this along, because I’ve watched this trailer twice and genuinely have no idea what the movie is about beyond Jennifer Lawrence acting her guts out and trying to win another Oscar:

Joy is the wild story of a family across four generations centered on the girl who becomes the woman who founds a business dynasty and becomes a matriarch in her own right. Betrayal, treachery, the loss of innocence and the scars of love, pave the road in this intense emotional and human comedy about becoming a true boss of family and enterprise facing a world of unforgiving commerce. Allies become adversaries and adversaries become allies, both inside and outside the family, as Joy’s inner life and fierce imagination carry her through the storm she faces. Jennifer Lawrence stars, with Robert De Niro, Bradley Cooper, Edgar Ramirez, Isabella Rossellini, Diane Ladd, and Virginia Madsen. Like David O. Russell’s previous films, Joy defies genre to tell a story of family, loyalty, and love.

De Niro and Cooper make this a full-fledged Silver Linings Playbook reunion, and the other interesting name here is Annie Mumolo, who co-wrote the film with Russell and who was previously the co-writer of Bridesmaids. That’s a pretty strong pedigree, for a movie and for an Oscar contender, even if I still don’t really understand what’s going on in the film. Joy opens on Christmas.